


Bedtime Stories

by searchingwardrobes



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Children's Books, Domestic Fluff, F/M, daddy killian, lost girl Emma, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 21:57:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11113668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/searchingwardrobes/pseuds/searchingwardrobes
Summary: Every night, Killian reads to his and Emma's twin daughters. What he doesn't know is that Emma sits in the hallway and listens each night.Inspired by scenes in the movie The Blindside.





	Bedtime Stories

**Author's Note:**

> I own neither Once Upon a Time nor any of the children's books quoted within this story.

              Bedtime in the big blue Swan-Jones house, like bedtime in many houses, consisted of a ritual of baths, teeth brushing, and kisses goodnight. And like many households, it also included story time. For the Jones twins, it was daddy who did the honors. Snuggling down between them in their wrought iron double bed covered in a fuzzy purple Rapunzel blanket, Killian Jones would read to his girls.

              What the girls didn’t know was that their mother listened to story time, too. Emma was fairly certain Killian didn’t know, either. For one, this bonding time between her husband and their daughters warmed her heart. After so much struggle for their happy beginning, it was a balm to her soul to hear the girls giggles harmonize with Killian’s deep laugh.

              But it wasn’t just that.

              Killian Jones also had a way with words; even with words that weren’t his own. Truth be told, any woman would willingly listen to the man read the menu on the wall at Granny’s. His deep timbre and rolling accent had always been able to simultaneously stoke the flames of desire and warm Emma’s soul like a comforting embrace.

              But it wasn’t just that, either.

              Belle helped Killian select books on his frequent visits to the library, and she ensured that the Jones children were fed the best of classic children’s literature. Every time Emma saw a new stack on the coffee table, the titles and cover illustrations took her back to her own childhood. Back to all the books her parents never read to her. The books every other child knew as well as the most familiar Christmas carol.

              So Emma sat in the hall, listening to her husband read. He did all of the sound effects with dramatic flair.

              _Little Sal picked three berries and dropped them into her little tin pail . . . kuplunk, kuplank, kuplunk!_

The rhymes rolled off his tongue like a melody.

              _In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. They left the house at half past nine in two straight lines in rain or shine. The smallest one was Madeline._

He made the simplest beginnings sound like epic fairy tales

              _Once upon a time there was a Little House way out in the country. She was a pretty Little House and she was strong and well built._

              Moments of excitement and adventure became absolutely epic under the command of Killian’s voice.

              _And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said, “BE STILL!” and tamed them with a magic trick._

Stories seemed to resonant on a deeper level as the words poured like honey over and under Killian’s accented voice.

              _Once upon a time in Spain there was a little bull and his name was Ferdinand. All the other little bulls he lived with would run and jump and butt their heads together, but not Ferdinand. He liked to just sit quietly and smell the flowers._

When he read “Tikki Tikki Tembo,” Killian could say the long, rollicking name of the main character so fast and so easily, it would set the girls off giggling every time.

              _Oh, Most Honorable Mother, Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo has fallen into the well!_

And sometimes, like tonight, his voice and the story combined to touch that deep part of Emma’s soul where that little lost girl still resided.

              _. . . some poor little person who’s shaking with fear that he’ll blow in the pool! He has no way to steer! I’ll just have to save him. Because, after all, a person’s a person, no matter how small!_

              Emma felt a tear slip down her cheek and wiped at it hastily. To get so emotional over a children’s book! What was wrong with her? And yet she sniffled the rest of the way through Dr. Seuss until finally Horton saved the Whos. Emma was still sitting there, her knees pulled up to her chin, when Killian stepped out their daughters’ room, pulling the door closed silently. When he saw her, he startled, nearly dropping the book. So he _didn’t_ know about her nightly routine.

              “Emma, love, what are you doing out here?” he asked, squatting down beside her. He reached out and brushed a tear away with his knuckles.

              Emma shook her head, suddenly embarrassed. “I guess you may as well know. I sit out here every night when you read to the girls. Though why I’m crying all of a sudden, I have no idea!”

              Killian gave her a soft smile in understanding. She was an open book to him, after all. “These are the stories of your realm, Swan. Stories all children are supposed to hear as they grow, am I right?”

              Emma nodded, embarrassed when her chin wobbled and fresh tears filled her eyes. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath to steady herself. “And our girls will hear them all.”

              Killian smiled in understanding. “Aye, Swan, that they will.”

              “Besides,” Emma teased, cocking her head to one side, “you have a very sexy reading voice.”

              Emma expected him to arch an eyebrow and toss her an innuendo. Instead, he took the book he held under his left elbow and waved it at Emma as he blushed, “You mean I make Dr. Seuss sound sexy?”

              Emma thought about it for a minute, and then grinned, “Yeah. At Christmas your Grinch voice gets me all worked up.” Then Emma wiggled her own eyebrows in imitation of her husband.

              Killian laughed, then stood and scooped her up into his arms. “Well, since you find my voice so sexy, why don’t I give you your own private story time?”

              Here was her cocky pirate! “Oh, and what will you read to me?”

              Killian swiped his tongue across his lower lip as he gazed at her with lust-filled eyes, “Oh no, love. This will be an original tale about a buxom blonde locked in a tower who taught a cowardly deck hand the ways of the world. If you catch my meaning.”

              He winked as he carried her over the threshold of their room, and Emma bit her lip as she looked deep into his eyes, “Sounds like quite the sordid tale. How does it begin?”

              Killian cleared his throat dramatically as he deposited her on the bed. “As most stories do: Once upon a time . . .”

**Author's Note:**

> Books quoted (in order):  
> * Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey  
> * Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans  
> * The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton  
> * Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak  
> * The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf  
> * Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel  
> * Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss


End file.
